Code Upgrade

Today went rather well. I decided to break away from my other projects and dive back into this and to start with I upgraded the code from where I left it. Previous it had been written in AS3 and I realized this might be troublesome when I come to adding in my character, Spark as in working with characters I am only familiar with AS3 coding to deal with it. So, after a bit of tinkering I managed to convert my AS2 file to AS3 and I had a go at trying to add Spark to it. Wasn't successful on that part but I'm not too worried. I'm sure someone at uni can help me out there. I have plenty of other things I can work on in the meantime, graphics especially!

Code Code Code....Boy do I like Code

I figured I would change my usual ways and instead dive into the code early rather than create all my graphics and then struggle at the last minute to try piece together some working code. The main thing I needed to figure out was how to make a background scroll as this is the style of my game, a vertical scrolling shooter. In looking on the net there weren't too many good examples, especially those working in AS3, well that I could find anyway. I was probably looking in the wrong place but what you gonna do?

Anyhow, I came across a very simple Actionscript 2 tutorial for making a background scroll so I made my way through that using the given files which was rather insightful. Afterward I played around with different variables so that I fully got an understanding of how it worked. Pretty happy with progress thus far. Still early days yet, see how we go...

Creating Sparks

It's the start of the holidays and I was feeling in the mood for some drawing so I figured I'd put that motivation to good use and draw up Spark, the character for my environment that I have decided to base off my Project 3 game proposal. I started with the head and worked my way down to the body and the foot glider. It didn't take me too long to make up the glider as I had done a good few sketches of it for the proposal. The only semi time consuming part was getting the wings the right shape and rightly angled to suit.

Next came colour which was actually quite hard. I didn't really know what to make what, expect for the glider which I wanted to be a metal grey. Before long though I settled on a colour palette, that of a desert camoflauge, and I had him drawn.

Spark:

Enviornment Change

Today I began to sketch up imagery for the desert in illustrator but when doing so I found myself less and less passionate about it. For this reason I gave up and went back to my book to brainstorm some new ideas. The other cause for the change was that after watching the movie Nausicaa that Kah put me onto, the storyline and ideas were rather similar to my game and this being my first time doing this sort of thing, I want my first project to be something from my own head that cannot be compared to someone else work. I came to this conclusion:

Years into the future the world as we knew it has long since passed. No longer do we limit ourselves to life on land. Nowadays we take our cities to the sky. Life is peaceful, well it was. Our peace has been disrupted by an ancient alien race that came to Earth as a result of a NASSC (modern day NASA) experimental beacon to try and communicate with extra terrestrial life forms. We find ourselves helpless as our cities are being overthrown as they have waged war upon us all. They wish to inhabit our planet and use our Earths energy crystals as a means of powering some sort of secret weapon. Your mission, help Spark, our Earths greatest warrior escape from Sky City and take out this threat as they spread from city to city, destroying everything in their path in hopes of finding these crystals. We cannot let them succeed, I shudder to think what might happen if this weapon is unleashed.

So, in regards to my environment for project 2, I am going to create Sky City. The first level to this new game. I have also decided to change my perspective as in researching further into the shoot'em up genre, I find the games more fun when you have a 360 degree range of fire. To accommodate this, my perspective will now be a birds eye view although my environment will be on a slight angle so that I can get creative with the look of Sky City, rather than having to settle with simple shapes and have to explain, that is a house or that is a plant. The slight angle will make it easy for the gamer to identify the surroundings.

Enviornment Precedents

I have been looking at 2 games for ideas to make my enviornment. One of these being 3D to meet Kah's request in not looking towards 2D games, and then one being 2D just because it's one of my favourite games and a great inspiration towards making my project.

These two games are Jak 3 for the Playstation 2 and Burning Force for the Sega Megadrive.

Jak 3

Jak 3 is the final chapter to the hugely popular Jak and Daxter series for the Playstation 2 and by far my favourite of the 3 games. I absolutely love the gameplay in this game as it has a bit of everything. Platform based melee combat mixed with a bit of vehicle action for racing and other missions. I love the freedom in the desert enviornment the most. The place is quite expansive and leads to some interesting areas. I like how realistic it is also, with sands changing dependant on the time of day. The sunnier it is the calmer it is, the darker it is the more gusty it becomes. Not sure how I might include this in my design but will definiely include sandy winds in my area to stay true to a desert enviornment. This is also good reference as to what you might see out in a desert and the changes in the landscape. The artistic style of this I think is also worth mentioning. It uses simple colouring but does so in more detail than what you would see in games for that of the Megadrive for example which is just pure colour. Here it uses more shades as well as texturing to give a polished look to the gameplay.

Burning Force

Burning Force is a rather unheard of Megadrive game, a bit like Pulseman is here in New Zealand. Regardless of this though, It has got to be one of my top 10 favourite games to the Megadrive console. What I liked about this game was its bright use of colours and the fast paced action in its gameplay. What was also cool was the 360 degree range of movement in the gameplay as well, something that wasn't so much seen in games that were made in this persepective, which at the time were only really racing games where the car would stay planted and the enviornment scroll past you. For my enviornment I want to do something similar to this but to a better degree. For example I will use more detail in my colouring as well as in the landscape itself. Here you can make out that the game is set over top of water but I guess the presentation of the water is lacking, I don't believe I have ever seen water that is a bunch of radical jagged lines and two shades of blue. I would prefer to see something a little more refined and realistic.

The enviornment in Burning Force is like a 2D car game. It reveals itself as you move through the game much like Jak 3 does as well. Both have a set horizon line and then the landscape changes as you progress, trees appear from the distance for example and disappear once you move past them. I like this setup because you don't know what's to come. It's a bit of a mystery so it keeps you guessing which I think adds good attraction to the gameplay. Especially since it doesn't just do this with the landscape but with the opposing enemies to. As you progress new enemies appear and they get stronger and stronger adding to the challenge which I like. They shoot a lot quicker and in some cases become more erratic.

Level wise Burning Force changes with the weather and daytime which adds realism to the game. Jak 3 does something similar but it has no levels, new missions become available as you progress instead which I quite like because it means there is no break in the gameplay unless of course you were to stop playing the game literally.

Game Proposal - Spark: Desert Demolition

http://bluespark.fileave.com/Spark Desert Demolition.pdf

Enviornment: The Idea

I've been thinking about making a game for a while now and with the project 3 game proposal it was great being able to develop one of my ideas. For project 2 I am going to develop the enviornment for what I hope to be my project 3 game, if that doesn't turn out then I will use what I make here to develop the game solo.

The type of enviornment I am looking at is a desert. The basic story of the game is that the world now lives together within one city, Earth City. Outside the city walls is just desert and ruins of what used to be the world as we know it today. It is this enviornment that I wish to create for project 2. I was considering making Earth City but I want to stick to the shoot 'em up enviornment where most of the gameplay happens.

I'M DONE!

Been a bit of a mission and a hell of a journey but the Broadway demo is now complete. Why not give it a whirl?

Controls:

Press:

- Left/Right arrow keys to walk.
- Up to jump.
- Ctrl to sword stab.
- Spacebar to execute the "Special Move"

Broadway: Character Sheet

Right so I figured I'd do a quick post of an image I've made up. Bit of a character sheet for Broadway, a collection of a range of different actions and poses etc. Enjoy!

Environment: The Sewer

I was getting really sick of looking at Broadway floating around in the white space dimension so I took a time out from animating to create an environment for him. His home is based in the sewer so using inspiration from both Crash Bandicoot - the sewer levels and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles I made up this image: 

Incorporated aspects: stone tablet floor, brick walls and of course pipes and tunnels. 

Broadway: Animation Cycles

Been desigining as well as making my animation cycles for Broadway. Different motions I have decided on are walk, jump, attack one and an attack two which will be like a special move.

Attack one will be a stab motion as laid out here:

Alterations to this will more than likely be made when I work with it in flash but you get the point.

Jump: Had a look at the way his body will move to when jumping. Also created a new face for the jump where Broadway looks up to the sky!

Attack Two: Special move. Will again include the use of his sword but not too sure what I will do. Something will come to me I'm sure when I come to animating it up.

Walk Cycle: See previous post.

Broadway: Walk Cycle